Helping news entrepreneurs and their communities flourish everywhere
By Amy L. Kovac-Ashley
Have you ever considered starting up a newsroom? Funding a startup media org? Partnering with Tiny News Collective to bring more community-centered news to your area? Next month is a great time to start the conversation and meet up with Tiny News staff and Collective members at LION’s Independent News Sustainability Summit in Chicago from September 5 to 7, or at the Online News Association’s ONA24 conference in Atlanta from September 18 to 21.
Those going to LION’s summit can find me and our membership director Andrea Faye Hart Thursday through Saturday, and can book time with me here. Madison Karas, our project manager for R&D, will be at LION from Wednesday to Friday. Plus, we have a TNC board member and three news founders speaking at the summit (all times are CT):
Meanwhile, for those heading to Atlanta for ONA24, you can book time to meet up with me here. I plan to be there Tuesday through Friday. I would love to talk to folks who are interested in becoming a founder in our Collective, or partnering with us to build local infrastructure so startups can thrive in their communities. Madison Karas will also be there Wednesday through Friday, too, and would love to meet folks. We are hoping to build on and adapt the model of our partnership with the Wichita Foundation that helped fund three new TNC startups in Kansas this year. And we’re open to other ways of partnering to help fill critical news and information gaps experienced by communities all over the country. See you in Chicago and Atlanta!
As part of our support for TNC founders, we recently launched a new series of profiles to learn more about their work, their impact and plans for the future. Our second piece features an interview with Latasha Eley Kelly, a.k.a. The Millennial Black Professor®, who launched TMBP Media through the Wichita Info Challenge, in partnership with TNC. The startup’s aim is to amplify representation, cultivate perspective and empower community through a suite of podcasts and multimedia content. Latasha wants to provide a platform for underrepresented stories that challenge the status quo. The first podcast series she produced is “BLACK in One Piece.”
Latasha talked about her creative line of merchandise and also detailed her vision for what TMBP Media might become. “I recently secured a small space that will have a retail component, and I want to emphasize programming,” she said. “Of course, I will have my merchandise for sale, but I want to prioritize programming and also envision being able to record podcasts there as well. I’d like to invite people in for select recordings and even want to offer a curated, full-service book and podcast club. That's something I see for the future and, regarding the suite of podcasts, we've already started recording for two of the other shows that will be coming out.”
Read more in the latest “5 Questions” profile.
Tiny News is excited to announce a new partnership with Canva that will include free access to Canva’s premium visual features for those in the Publishing Tier of service from TNC. That means that most TNC members will get free access to Canva Pro and Canva for Teams for up to 50 users through the Canva for Nonprofits subscription. Canva Pro typically costs $120 per year, per person.
Publisher Tier members make up nearly 80 percent of our Collective, and access to Canva will complement the technical, legal, audience and leadership support they already receive from Tiny News. Our services aim to make work-life balance more possible for entrepreneurs who often juggle many roles amongst many deadlines.
Publishers can use Canva to effortlessly create captivating visuals for social media, engaging videos, powerful data visualizations, informative infographics and so much more. Whether you're a one-person news team or part of a bustling newsroom, Canva empowers you with the creative freedom and professional tools needed to enhance your storytelling and elevate your impact on readers and viewers alike.
Read more about this partnership.
TNC member Harvey World Herald and founder Amethyst Davis received a two-year $120,000 grant from the Square One Foundation in Chicago to support growth and development. The newsroom had requested to renew a $50,000 grant, first awarded last summer. The foundation’s board decided to up the ante with a six-figure investment to advance nonpartisan, independent journalism in Harvey.
The Harvey World Herald will use the general operations funding to focus on diversifying revenue streams and supporting operational sustainability. Amethyst was also featured in a story in Crain’s Chicago Business about the state of local news in Chicago and rise of philanthropy. “I don't necessarily think that the future of journalism is exclusively going to be dependent upon philanthropy, but I do think they need to do more than they already are doing,” Amethyst said.
🤑 The 51st, a new publication covering Washington, D.C., had an initial goal of crowdfunding $250,000 over 30 days, and it has now surpassed that goal with more than $270,000 raised and counting. According to the co-founders: “This successful campaign means we’ll be able to get the rest of our operation set up and begin publishing in the fall. This gets us several months' worth of a runway, with everyone working part-time and continuing to build The 51st collaboratively!” Also, check out this Q&A with two of the co-founders, Colleen Grablick and Abigail Higgins, and this Nieman Reports piece that features a conversation with co-founders Maddie Poore and Natalie Delgadillo talking about their focus on being a worker-led news organization.
We ❤️ this last line from Maddie, which encapsulates our approach at Tiny News: "Start small and scalable; it’s best to under-promise and over-deliver than the other way around. You don’t have to limit yourself to the old structures and systems that didn’t work in the first place. Think creatively and have fun."
🗳️ Mat-Su Sentinel received a $2,000 grant from the organizers of U.S. Democracy Day, when news organizations around the country will write about democracy on September 15. The Sentinel plans to create a digital election guide for local election races in the cities of Palmer, Houston and Wasilla, Alaska, with questions taken from a series of community surveys.
The Sentinel was also accepted into the Pre-launch Startups Lab by Google News Initiative. The Lab is an eight-week, remote program that helps entrepreneurs launch successful, trusted digital news organizations.
🏆 Planeta Venus produced its first awards dinner on August 22 to celebrate the achievements of Latino leaders in Wichita. Planeta Venus founder and editor-in-chief Claudia Amaro also facilitated a panel discussion at SRCCON titled, “Civic Media and Latinx Audiences: How to reach Latinxs and meet their civic media information needs.” You can see Claudia in action at SRCCON in the photo above by Madison Karas.
🤑 The co-founders at Rascal ran a unique summer pledge drive that concluded with their appearance at Gen Con, an annual gaming conference, on a panel fittingly called, “Meet the Rascals.” During the drive, they gained about 300 new paying subscribers and unlocked a key goal of being able to give themselves a raise. Kudos to Lin Codega, Rowan Zeoli and Chase Carter for being so transparent about costs and money as they build their membership community.
📅 Speaking of transparency, The SHOUT, an arts publication in Wichita, realized that its first version of its community calendar was not working. So it sent out a note about that to readers, admitting they had missed the mark. They also revamped the calendar to make it searchable, dynamic and more user-friendly. So far, co-founders Emily Christensen and Teri Mott have seen good results and impact from this change and are encouraged by the feedback they have received. Here’s to an iterative product development approach!
Here’s a roundup of resources to support small newsrooms:
Live Journalism Events Workbook from American Press Institute
Resource to help news outlets plan live events, developed by API’s Live Events Sprint
Covering Equitable Community Development Fellowship from National Press Foundation
A workshop in Missoula, MT, from Oct. 7 to 10 will help journalists add context and breadth to their coverage of community development issues. Apply by September 2.
Cracking the Code: How to read local government budgets from the Public Ledger
A tool to help journalists follow the money and use public data in a structured way.
How to FOIA: A visual guide for obtaining public records from the Washington Post
A graphic novel-style guide to getting public records through the Freedom of Information Act.
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Thanks for reading the latest edition of the Big Blast from Tiny News. Be sure to follow us on social media to keep up with the latest from TNC and our amazing group of founders!
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The Big Blast Credits
Written by Amy L. Kovac-Ashley, with Mark Glaser
Edited by Amy L. Kovac-Ashley and Andrea Faye Hart
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